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Congressional committees with cybersecurity responsibilities continued to fill out their subcommittee line-ups this week, with Senate Commerce naming ranking members of its subcommittees and both the Senate Armed Services and the House Energy and Commerce committees naming leaders and members of their panels.

A former White House official says the federal government's next steps in combating botnets should include assigning liability to entities comprising the web of connected devices known as the Internet of Things, as a new law taking effect in California next January is adding urgency to both federal and private-sector efforts on the issue.

Multiple members of Congress took aim at data privacy this week, with Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) reintroducing legislation Thursday to protect the data of social media users, on the same day that two Democratic senators wrote to the Federal Trade Commission asking for information on how the ongoing partial government shutdown is impacting its investigation of Facebook's data privacy policies.

The Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center is warning cyber vulnerabilities in supporting infrastructure could thwart advancements in satellite and space technologies, an assessment that comes as the Trump administration is pushing expanded military operations in space.

Cybersecurity officials in government and the private sector are increasingly voicing concerns about the prolonged government shutdown, including impacts for the government's cybersecurity workforce, dealing with advanced and persistent threats, and DHS efforts to establish the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. This special report provides easy access to Inside Cybersecurity's complete coverage on the data-security implications of the partial government shutdown.

Lawmakers introduced companion bills Thursday in the House and Senate to protect critical energy infrastructure, calling for a “pilot program” to identify cyber vulnerabilities and a national strategy to defend the energy grid.

The Telecommunications Industry Association and the Internet of Things Community have agreed to work on accelerating the use of IoT technologies as part of a “smart buildings” initiative announced Thursday.

The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on information technology will be absorbed into the OGR government operations subcommittee, new OGR government operations Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told reporters Wednesday, while two lawmakers who were shuffled out of top subcommittee spots on OGR are moving to other exclusive House committees.

On Jan. 16, 2019, House Energy and Commerce ranking member Greg Walden (R-OR) and Energy and Commerce subcommittee ranking members including Reps. Bob Latta (R-OH), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Brett Guthrie (R-KY) wrote to AT&T with questions around the company's privacy policies and guidelines regarding location-based information and services.

California's new privacy law provides more clarity than Europe's General Data Protection Regulation when it comes to explaining little-noted cybersecurity-based exceptions to requirements that companies honor individuals' data deletion requests, according to an industry lawyer who has worked on privacy and data security issues as general counsel to the Commerce Department.

Editor's Note

There will be no updates posted today, Jan.21st, in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

The Defense Department Office of the Inspector General has issued a summary of past reports that includes a review of the Pentagon's implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act and reiterates concerns about a lack of management oversight of cybersecurity risks.

Tech and auto industry leaders see “consumer perceptions” of autonomous vehicles as the main barrier to the testing and rollout of self-driving cars while also ranking cybersecurity as a top concern, according to a report published Monday by law firm Perkins Coie and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

A leading industry group is pointing to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation as containing important cybersecurity principles for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to consider as NIST develops a risk management framework for protecting privacy.